Why Your Sales Reps Need to Use Social Media and Share Your Content

Not every business owner understands the benefits of social media. Considering its use in sales is relatively new, it’s understandable. In fact, you might have even banned social media use from the office, considering it a waste of company time. But part of your inbound marketing strategy is the creation and sharing of valuable, relevant content, and your sales reps should be involved in sharing it far and wide for best results. Inbound marketing requires the commitment of both marketing and sales for best results.

Here’s why you should ditch your ban on social media networking and encourage your sales team to use sites like LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook to share your content instead.

Sharing to Increase Brand Visibility

One of the goals of content sharing online is to increase your brand visibility. The more people who know that your company exists, the more new customers you can acquire. It only makes good sense to try to grow your visibility by having your sales people share your posts with their networks, too, as opposed to only sharing it with your company’s followers. Your sales reps should be your brand ambassadors. The more they like and share your posts, the more page views your company is going to get, and potentially, the more followers you’ll get. Plus, with more page followers comes higher page ranking, too, which sparks greater reach and interaction.

If your sales people aren’t sharing your articles, posts, videos, and press releases, you’re limiting your reach of communications and missing out on effective opportunities to be visible to your target audiences.

Using Social Media to Increase Credibility and Trust

Your sales people should be actively engaged on social platforms. By not only sharing your content but also by creating some of their own, answering questions, and providing insights, they can position themselves as subject-matter experts. And by being thought leaders in the industry—experts that customers and prospects can trust for accurate and relevant information—they can increase their credibility as trusted advisors. And considering credibility and trust are critical in sales, this can go a long way.

Connecting Customers to Your Company’s Identity through Humanization

One of the best things about social media is that it can make your company seem more human. Customers can put faces to your business. The more your sales reps use sites like LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter to engage with their prospects and customers, the more connected your audience will become to your company’s identity. In today’s market, humanizing your brand is critical to gaining new business. It allows you to build emotional connections with clients, which also builds trust.

Improving Morale and Give Them the Tools They Need to Succeed

If you’ve set strict rules about social networking in the office and discourage your sales people from using these types of platforms, you’re sending out a very clear message that you don’t trust them. And this can harm morale, your relationships with your reps, and even your turnover rate. Encouraging your sales people to connect with each other, with your brand, and with your customers on social media will create a shared bond and stronger loyalty to your company. Not only this, but these sites can be great informational tools that can help them stay on top of what others are doing and what trends are hot in the industry, giving them a competitive edge and helping them sell more effectively.

When you lift your ban on social media in the office and instead encourage your sales reps to use it and to share your company’s content online, you can increase brand visibility, establish credibility, humanize your brand, and improve morale.

Tyler Abbott

Tyler is the Social Media Manager at SalesHub. He has over 3 years of experiential marketing experience which he applies creatively to social media campaigns. He is Hubspot Certified & Inbound Certified. Tyler likes to stay active at the golf course, gym or hockey arena. If you can't find him there, he is most likely eating something doused in hot sauce watching his Toronto Maple Leafs make a run for the playoffs.